There are many, many things that can impact the way a woman does her job. Her education level, her ability to multi-task and adapt, her life experiences and the moments she has enabled herself, her intelligence level , the insults and slights she has been forced to endure to make it to a position that holds power, and the ability to keep learning well after school has ended can all have an impact on her work and her ability to accomplish a task.
You know what doesn’t have an impact?
What she fucking wears.
I took a poll of mostly myself and me, and we all agree that judging a woman’s ability to perform her job predicated upon outdated understandings of gender – and the stereotypical designs of what men want to be able to masturbate to when they leave the workplace – have zero, absolutely zero, none, zilch, nada, impact on the woman’s brain, skill, and determination.
Her body, the superficial, and the things that strangers value first and actual decent people value least, is out of her control. What is in control is what she learns, and how she applies that knowledge. That is it.
Now, I know that look on your face. That startled duck-look of complete terror and pain. That’s the look of someone who doesn’t quite believe, who is having their worldview shattered, but it’s okay. Let me explain, ducklings, why clothes don’t matter in the face of intellect.
Clothes are material things that reinforce gender and economic differences, and they are not an actual sign of anything of any real importance when it comes to character.
(If you doubt me, well, WHERE ARE ALL THE FUCKING POCKETS AT IN MY PANTS?! Huh? Where? Why do men get them and women don’t? The answer is sexism, folks.) Clothes are used as ways of categorizing people into tiny, neat little piles where no one has to think too hard about the people in front of them, because they’re tied up into neat little bows. That person is wearing a skirt! Must be a woman! Treat her like she didn’t get a doctorate or law degree, and explain her field expertise to her in ways in which you’re wrong but loud enough that she can’t correct you! That person is wearing a tie! I will let them continue to be mediocre and talk over women! It is the way of things. I have solved the gender problem in the workplace! Skirts and ties are neat! Go me for having the most original thought in the history of never!
Clothes are superficial. The smart person recognizes that what a person wears in no way impacts their ability to get things done. Yes, in a modern age of social media, we shouldn’t look the way I do on Saturday binges of writing and communing with snack foods and sodas when our career exists under public scrutiny. There should be a neatness to our appearance in those circumstances, of course. That’s common sense.
What some douche bag, arrogant, and dumb people don’t understand is that looking nice is not predicated upon gender roles that are forced upon us through our clothes and the more ignorant members of society. Wearing flats or a pantsuit in no way makes someone appear less like a woman. To me, they just look fucking comfortable enough to be on their feet all day and get shit done.
Telling someone that they should look like a woman is an insidious and not-very-clever way of trying to “keep them in their place.”
Instilling a rule of what looks like a woman is not about being professional or holding anyone to any kind of standard. It is about reminding women in the workplace that they are “less” that they must hold up to the fantasies of the men in the workplace in order to accomplish anything. It is about limiting the existence of people who do conform to gender standards, or who don’t value their appearance above their brains. Clothes are visual chains to remind women that their beauty is first, their brains are second – if their brains are considered into the equation at all.
I hate to be the one to shatter your illusions, gaping ducks, but the brainpower I have seen in my fellow ladies is the kind you all should be in awe of, and maybe just a little bit terrified of, if I’m being honest with you, and not all ignored. Seriously. Women, particularly black women, are currently some of the most educated people in the United States. Women are driving home new eras of tolerance and badassery in the workplace, and it is the old guard of sexist pigs like Trump that have decided that a woman cannot work unless she conforms to their standards of femininity.
You know what judging people on their gender (or the color of their skin, or the faith they practice, or the person they love) does? It makes your company, your business, and your country weak. It ignores a whole subset of brilliant, creative, and determined people who could find solutions to big problems. You are actively participating in making your product and your nation weak by underestimating a whole lot of people because of they way they look or dress. You’re so busy looking, and being obsessed with your dicks and getting your hard-ons, you’ve forgotten the awe and the terror you should be feeling.
Women are smart, women are quickly getting organized, if the protests around the world are anything to go by, and we are pissed. You really want to mess with that?
Try us.
Yeah, we’re gonna dress like women. We’re gonna dress like women every single day. Which is to say, we’ll dress however the fuck we want, roll up our sleeves, and kick all the ass. And we’ll do it without your approval. So, keep talking about what we should wear and how you think we should look. While you do, we’re gonna stay busy working to upset everything you stand for, every evil you see as normal, every stereotype you want to use to try to keep people lower than you.
We’re going to get busy using our brains in the ways you fear. We’re going to stay busy working – and no one is going to give a fuck what we wear while we tear your inequality and prejudice down, and create a better world for it. Believe that.